summer when neither of 'em could get a stock engagement."

Potter made no reply but to shake his head despondently, and
Packer sat silent in deference, as if waiting to be questioned
further. It was the playwright who presently filled the void.
"Why haven't Mr. and Mrs. Surbilt gone into the same companies,
if they care to be together? I should think they'd have made it
a point to get engagements in the same ones."

Packer looked disturbed. "It's not done much," he said.

"Besides, Vorly Surbilt plays leading parts with women stars,"
old Tinker volunteered. "You see, naturally, it wouldn't do at
all."

"Jealousy, you mean?"

"Not necessarily the kind you're thinking of. But it just
doesn't do."

"Some managers will allow married couples in their companies,"
Potter said, adding emphatically: "I won't! I never have and I
never will! Never! There's just one thing every soul in my
support has got to keep working for, and that is a high-tension
performance every night in the year. If married people are in
love with each other, they're going to think more about that
than about the fact that they're working for me. If they aren't
in love with each other, there's the devil to pay. I'd let the
best man or woman in the profession go--and they could go to
vaudeville, for all I cared!--if I had to keep their wives or